Update Sept. 3, 9 a.m. EDT: SpaceX confirmed deployment of its Starlink satellites.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket soared from Florida’s Space Coast among a collection of cumulus clouds less than an hour after sunrise on Wednesday.
The mission, dubbed Starlink 10-22, was the company’s 110th Falcon 9 launch of the year. SpaceX launched from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:56 a.m. EDT (1156 UTC).
On Tuesday, the 45th Weather Squadron forecast a 70 percent chance for favorable weather, citing a potential concern for interference from cumulus clouds.
“Isolated showers over the gulf stream are expected in the morning hours during both primary and back up launch days,” the meteorologists added.
SpaceX launched the missions using the first stage booster 1083, which flew for a 14th time. Some of its previous missions included NASA’s Crew-8, Polaris Dawn and Intuitive Machines’ second lunar lander.
Nearly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1083 landed on the drone ship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas.’ This was the 123rd landing on this vessel and the 499th booster landing to date.
The 28 Starlink V2 Mini satellites onboard the rocket were deployed a little more than an hour after liftoff. This was SpaceX’s 79th mission this year supporting its satellite megaconstellation.
